He has won all of his opening three games for the loss of only a single frame, while it is certainly all to play for elsewhere. The next four players in the table all have two wins from their opening games. Michael Holt and Mark Davis have the advantage of only playing three of their six games so far, while Kyren Wilson has taken the most frames despite having played four games, while Graeme Dott may struggle if he does not improve on his two wins from four games so far.
One man that is struggling badly is Ricky Walden. He lost his opening match 3-0 to Kyren Wilson and then surrendered a 2-0 lead against Michael Holt to fall to a second defeat. He did manage a 3-0 win over Mark Davis though the match was hardly of a quality standard. The day ended with a 3-1 loss to Mark Selby in what was always set to be a tough match.
David Gilbert was the player of the seven that had the night off, after playing his opening three games this afternoon. However, the evening would not have been that enjoyable for him after losing all of his three games and putting himself well and truly on the back foot going into day two, knowing that a minimum of two wins from his three remaining games will be needed to avoid elimination in the bottom two at the end of the round robin stages.
You would think that from this position Mark Selby would make the semi-finals as he is comfortably the best player in this group. Neil Robertson would have been the next best but after his Welsh Open final disappointment he withdrew (as I expected) and Michael Holt moved up from group six to replace him.
Kyren Wilson will still need a win from his final two games and he still has to play table topper Mark Selby along with third place Michael Holt, so he still has to be on his game tomorrow to secure a top four finish.
Michael Holt still has three games, the one against Wilson as I mentioned followed by games against Mark Davis and David Gilbert, and I would back him to get a win from those three that you would expect (depending on other results and his frames won and lost) to put him into the knock out stages.
As for Mark Davis, he like Holt still has three games and aside from the game with the Hitman he will take on Mark Selby and Graeme Dott so a win from those three is not a certainty but I think the Seniors champion will be able to do enough to get through to the final four.
2006 world champion Graeme Dott has an uphill task with only two games to go and a currently inferior frames won/lost ratio. Aside from his match with Mark Davis he takes on Ricky Walden in what could be a must win match for both players and potentially be the difference for Dott between the top four and bottom two.
Ricky Walden is not looking good and has two must win games tomorrow against the players around him. Sitting in sixth on one win, he plays fifth placed Graeme Dott and seventh placed David Gilbert as he searches for a way out of his present mess.
Finally, David Gilbert has three games to change his fortunes but without a win to his name he will need at least two wins, if not a clean sweep to avoid elimination. The one with Walden is certainly a must win, but the other two with Michael Holt and unbeaten Mark Selby are set to be tough games and you have to say that things look very bleak at this point for the International Championship finalist.
Tomorrow is another day though and after the positions have been determined the semi-finals and final will take place as the fifth name in the winners group is determined and news of that will be brought to you on this blog once that happens.
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